If you want to be the best, you learn from the best. When it comes to college basketball, John Wooden was the best.

That’s why two researchers — Ronald Gallimore and Roland Tharp — made a study of Wooden during practice.

They paid particular attention to what Wooden, the longtime UCLA basketball coach, said and how often he said it. Their work is long and somewhat academic (they are researchers, after all), but their article can make you take a look at what you say during your practices.

Long story short: More than 50 percent of Wooden’s utterances fell into the category of what to do and how to do it.

Here’s a guarantee: If you read and digest what Gallimore and Tharp have to say, you will change certain things about the way you teach. And that means anything from a classroom to an Olympic training ground.